


Here Comes A Thought

by inverts



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Anger Management, Canon-Typical Depression, Canonical Character Death, Emotions, Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person, Spoilers, dyslexic character, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inverts/pseuds/inverts
Summary: You are angry, and you are sad, and you want, desperately, for a kinder world, where things are not sounfair.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	Here Comes A Thought

**Author's Note:**

> https://youtu.be/IPrRS4c9NiU?t=679 -- timestamped to relevant part.

You are having a feeling.

This is not, actually, a new or different or weird occurrence for you, even though you have just recently learned that you’re not really _supposed_ to have much by way of mind, or thoughts, or feelings, or _anything at all_ going on in your head! But you’d left Hallownest without remembering that little detail—without, in fact, ever having learned it at all, mere hatchling that you were, too young to form actual memories or have any grasp of language to comprehend the damning curse your father spoke upon you and all your kin upon your birth. It is only after revisiting the Abyss that the memory was able to form clearly in your forbidden mind. The rocks and shades and void of that place held on to the echo of those words for you all this time, and if you’re honest, you’d kind of rather they hadn’t bothered.

Although... it does help you, now, to know why Hornet speaks to you the way she does. Saying things like she knew who you were and what you’d try to do—well, you sure hadn’t known that, and you wish she’d told you instead of leaving it up to you to find out. Though, come to think of it, her telling might not have been any more gentle than the bitter vision the Abyss had shared with you. 

Regardless of could-have-beens, one way or another, you now know everything. Unfortunately. You know who you are and what you’d try to do. You know why Hornet is so sad and angry, and why your other sibling is so sad and hurt, and why your _other_ siblings are so sad and so dead.

Would knowing you were supposed to be mindless have stopped you from having thoughts? 

Probably not. Even when you have feelings that you struggle to identify, or that you don’t enjoy feeling—like now!—there’s no stopping them. 

So. You are, here and now, having a feeling. Which is something you do pretty often. But this one…

You look, again, at the corpse which has inspired such a reaction from you. Though you’ve ascended and descended the Dirtmouth well many times, you’ve only just now stumbled across this bug’s remains by chance, a hidden nook in the wall having caught your eye. There is little to set this carapace apart from the many others you have come across in your journey, but as it held a Hallownest Seal, you’d investigated it closer than most. The Dream Nail is still in your hand, ready and waiting should you choose to strike with it once more, but…. No. Once was enough. The last thoughts, the last hopes and dreams that cling to this corpse—you heard them loud and clear already. 

_Home._

No spirit lingers around this body, no ghost that needs to be put to rest (except you! haha!) and yet the discovery, somehow, haunts you. But why should it? Why should it affect you, you who have seen countless corpses and husks in your journey through this old kingdom—you who have created countless more fresh bodies to add to the pile—you who have felt your own shell split and part under fatal blows, then to retreat to safety and reform? What does one more dead bug matter?

But—

_But—_

But they were _so close_. The top of the well shaft can be reached with only a few more jumps; the dim light from the cloudy sky can still be seen. Whether this bug had once hailed from Dirtmouth, or perhaps somewhere farther, they had made it this close to that little town, to potential _help_ if not their home itself—they’d been this close! And then.

And then.

…. And then.

You have always struggled to understand that other bugs—sometimes, other bugs’ bodies do not do what they desire. Other bugs might lose their coordination or focus if they do not eat or sleep properly. You, too, need to take care of yourself—energy cannot be created from nothing, after all—but even if you cannot obtain soul or, in times of extreme need, actual food, your body has never refused to do what you’ve asked of it. But you know, even if you do not understand from personal experience. You’ve seen and you’ve learned that sometimes, other bugs… cannot continue, without food or water. Sometimes will alone is not enough. 

There is no outward damage to the carapace. There are no other corpses in this little hole with them. Could it be, then, that their body… gave up on them? So close to their goal? 

That feeling overwhelms you again, and you cannot simply stand and let it wash over you this time. You hop back and forth from foot to foot, but that isn’t enough; you dart, a few steps dashed here and back, and then you jump, again and again, striking the ceiling and walls with your nail, heedless of the pebbles that fly free and bounce off your mask. 

The corpse does not move. You know that if you struck them with your dream nail again, you would hear, again: _Home._

Some feelings are easy to identify. Anger is perhaps the one you could explain most easily—well, if you had a voice, or knew how to write, or anything else. Language is not one of your greatest skills. (Apparently, this is by design!) It is easy to learn to do a new thing when you can copy it yourself. Fighting, jumping, climbing, swimming, even dancing—your body does what you ask of it, once you know to ask, once you have seen that it can be done. But words—words are things that still evade you at times. (Half of what Hornet says, you don’t understand—you figure that if she wants to fight, she’ll attack, regardless of whatever fancy words she uses. It’s not like you can ask her to repeat herself so you can puzzle through the sounds. Nor can you say anything that will change her mind, though even if you did have a voice, you aren’t certain any words exist that could dissuade her once she’s decided upon a course of action.) You can’t copy the sounds, can’t try them out for yourself, and so why bother? You’ve managed well enough so far without.

(You can read, but you don’t like to—the letters move and jump about the same way Hornet does. Even trying to learn to write them yourself didn’t help to keep them still, which was frustrating—you made those marks, they should stay where you put them!)

So. You know your anger, how it makes your nail strikes too hasty, how it makes you misjudge your jumps, how it depletes your patience—and you know your own anger is pale and meager in comparison to the vibrant _rage_ you can hear in the voice that screams with your sibling’s. 

Sadness, too, you know—you’ve learned a few fancy words for it, as well; you could give Hornet a run for her money, to say that you are _bereft_ , to say that you have felt sorrowful and despondent—and the feeling that fills you now is flavoured with that sadness, though something deeper, something greater carries it. And your sadness, too, is a pitiful imitation of the pure despair that rings out in your sibling’s wailing cry.

Other feelings are fleeting, distant to you. You can recognize the fondness Cornifer and Iselda hold for each other, and you can recognize your own craving to experience such a soft thing yourself. You can see your same craving magnified, enlarged, in Bretta’s desire and fantasy. Strangely, you find a similar longing blended with your present feelings, and you grab that yearning thread and follow it.

The blended feeling becomes more and more familiar as you tug at this thread, this well-worn weave of wanting something you cannot have. You have felt this before, and it has moved you before. You have felt this anger, this sadness, this desire for a different outcome when the light in Myla’s eyes was no longer a reflection of crystalline refraction but a glow that came from within. You have felt this blend of futile regret and impotent fury when your lost, broken sibling was overtaken by that raging light and the only mercy you could give them was the same violent reconciliation that you deal to your own shade. You have felt this same abhorrent thing so many times in Hallownest—with Ze’mer, with Cloth, with even Tiso—and as they were known to you, so, too, was this feeling. With clear understanding of all it encompassed, you were not surprised by it, you did not dwell upon it and you were thus able to cast it aside.

But here and now, with this lonely corpse of a stranger, you did not anticipate that you would care. And so this damned feeling has snuck past your guard, has lured you into reliving it, and so tricked by this trap were you that _you yourself_ chased those memories to identify the familiarity—and oh, how often Hallownest has provided you opportunity to experience it! The immensity of the feeling envelopes you as deeply as your father’s first corpse, collapsing upon you with physical mass, pressing down upon your small shoulders and wearying you with its weight. 

You are angry, and you are sad, and you want, desperately, for a kinder world, where things are not so _unfair._

Nothing in this kingdom is fair. It’s not fair that all you do here is hurt people and watch them die. It’s not fair what you did to Hornet’s mother, it’s not fair what you did to Quirrel’s… whatever she was to him, and it’s not fair what this kingdom is doing to _you_. What this kingdom expects you to do for it, despite treating you so poorly.

It’s not fair that you never used to care that you didn’t have a voice, you never felt lacking or incomplete before, but now that you found out your father _made_ you that way _on purpose_ , the cruelty of his actions makes you feel _bad_ and _flawed_ when you know you aren’t, you’re perfect the way you are, you have everything you need to be you, the you who can run and jump and feel joy, and you used to be _happy_ before you came to this cursed kingdom! 

It’s not fair what your father did to you and all your siblings—Hornet and the Hollow Knight and every other nameless shade who’s still stuck in the abyss. It’s not fair that Ogrim still believes in him, it’s not fair that so many bugs died still praying and hoping in their very last moments that he would come save them, when he fled in his cowardice so he could die in craven seclusion. It’s not fair that all you’re left with is corpses—Cloth’s and Tiso’s and Dryya’s and the pale king’s own contemptible empty husk and the crumbling corpse of his entire worthless kingdom—and this nameless bug here who died before they could make it back to their _Home_. It’s not fair _it’s not fair **it’s not fair!**_

  
  
  


Like every other time you have been subjected to the brutality of this kingdom, you eventually rally. You leave the corpse in its cranny, and you force your focus elsewhere. Though you would prefer to wallow in your feelings to spite your bastard father’s intent of robbing you of them, you know that nothing will change if you do so. For now, you must set them aside. 

Once all this is done—once you have made things right, once you have destroyed your father’s eternity and stolen his kingdom out of stasis, once your actions have declared, “My kingdom now,” with far more efficiency than an unnecessary voice ever could—once all this is done, you will let yourself feel these things again. Each unpleasant sensation that you have been forced to shrug off in order to continue on, you will embrace. You will submerge yourself in them, let them wash over you in their natural course rather than suppressing and bottling them, like something to be collected and stored.

There are some feelings that you have long thought other bugs can feel with greater intensity than you can. Perhaps that, too, is due to your father’s malpractice and interference in your hatching. But you’re starting to suspect that your capacity for rage and anger has increased since your arrival to this kingdom. The voice screaming with your sibling’s might still have you beat for now, but it’s only because you got a late start.

Give it time. You’re good at picking up new skills, once you have seen that they can be done. 

And you’re getting a lot of practice in with this one.

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHg50mdODFM -- title inspiration.


End file.
